~ Day by day with RA …

Loss

A few years ago I held a communications position at one of the country’s largest clothing manufacturers. It was May and the company was ramped up getting orders ready to ship to retailers for the Father’s Day sales. As is often the case in May in Dallas, a tremendous storm came up. The thunderstorm dumped baseball-sized hail and enough rain to drown the city’s storm water system. There was enough rain that the weight of the water collapsed the roof of the company’s headquarters and distribution center — a building about the size of a football field. There were extra people and extra shifts working when it happened. Two people were killed and 12 others were sent to the hospital.

It was a tremendous blow to the company and the communications challenges were enormous.

But the hardest communications piece I wrote was for the CEO to give at the memorial service for the two workers who were killed. They were temporary workers who worked on the line during the night shift. He didn’t know them and felt a bit hypocritical giving a eulogy. But the words I wrote for him talked about people coming together to work toward common goals and how that binds people into a community, into a family. When one of us celebrates, we all share the happiness. When one of us dies, we are all diminished.

I had this same feeling of loss when I heard that RA Superbitch had died.

I didn’t know her. I’ve never met her. But I admired her spunk and her no-holds-barred approach to life. And now that she is gone, I feel diminished by her loss. That edgy, searing element that she added to our orchestra that is the RA blogging community is now forever quiet.